Shinichi Sasaki, executive vice-president in charge of quality control at Toyota, says the company is 'extremely worried' about its future sales. Photograph: Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images

Toyota was under pressure today over the accelerator fault that is forcing it to recall 2m cars across Europe as the RAC described the problem as "incredibly dangerous" and urged concerned owners to have their vehicles checked immediately.

Amid calls for the Japanese company to explain why it had waited for a year before issuing the recall, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents called on the manufacturer to launch an immediate inquiry into why the potentially serious fault was not detected before millions of vehicles were released on to the market.

Yesterday British owners of the eight affected models, which include the Aygo, Yaris, Corolla and Avensis, told how their cars sped beyond their control, and voiced frustration that Toyota dealerships were so slow to deal with the problem.

Catherine Block, 28, told the Guardian how her Aygo careered down a sliproad towards some roadworks on the A2 when her accelerator stuck before she took it to a Toyota dealer last October.

"It was only luck that I wasn't injured or killed, because I eventually figured out for myself how to unjam the pedal while driving," she said.

Another driver described how the throttle stuck at 60mph on a dual carriageway and it took him two and a half miles to slow down enough to drive on to a verge, where the car eventually stalled.

"Toyota needs to look at how this problem came about and why it wasn't picked up at the start in post-production checks," said a spokeswoman for RoSPA. "Was it identified as early as it could have been?"

An RAC spokesman said: "I hope they have done this [product recall] as quickly as they possibly could."

He issued advice to owners. "If your accelerator gets stuck down, it is a very frightening thing to happen at any speed. If your car is feeling slightly different from normal and there is a change in the behaviour of your accelerator, get it checked out straight away."

Toyota also came under criticism in Japan yesterday when the president of the company, Akio Toyoda, decided not to attend a hastily called press conference. In his place was the executive vice-president in charge of quality control, Shinichi Sasaki, who described the issue as unprecedented in scale and said the company was "extremely worried" about its future sales.

Senior management has come under criticism for failing to make a speedy public apology for the recall, which affects more than 8m cars around the world.

"The trust in Japanese quality, in Toyota, has been shaken," said Toshiro Yoshinaga, an analyst at Aizawa Securities in Tokyo.

Toyota said it had received 26 reports from across Europe of the accelerator pedal sticking and not bouncing back into position properly. A spokesman said yesterday the company had begun fitting new cars with a different accelerator last August, but did not initiate a recall until it become apparent that the pedal could become completely stuck down and had to be pulled back up.

Toyota is facing at least 10 lawsuits in north America, where owners have accused it of not acting quickly enough to fix the faulty pedals. Toyota in the UK said it had no evidence that anyone has been injured due to a stuck pedal, but the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had confirmed that five people had died as a result of trapped floor mats, a related problem which also makes the pedal stick. Toyota said this was not a problem in the UK, but British Toyota drivers have claimed it has caused their accelerator pedals to stick.

"Clearly there is an awful lot of distress caused as a result of this," said David Crouch, a spokesman at the company's UK headquarters in Epsom. "As soon as we started the recall, we opened up a dialogue with Toyota owners, and we have sent out information every day."

Crouch said Toyota could not have discovered the problem in post-­production testing because it was the result of a combination of moisture and wear causing friction in the accelerator mechanism, which happened over time and in particular atmospheric con­ditions.

He said every owner affected would be contacted. A remedy, in the form of a precision-cut steel reinforced bar, would be installed on their cars.

"We would like to reassure customers that the potential issue identified with the accelerator pedal only occurs in very rare circumstances," said Michael Valvo, Toyota's PR manager. "Our recall action is a precautionary measure."